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The good: CFOs think the economy is on an upswing. The bad: They also believe the Japan disaster will impact the US. The ugly: More of them than before plan to raise prices. The uglier: Even as CEO pay soars, most other employees can't expect the same for their compensation.

That's according to a biannual survey of CFOs conducted by Grant Thornton. It questioned 318 CFOs and senior comptrollers, 59 of whom were from the Northeast.

The C-suite may be enjoying a compensation bumper crop, but the same can't said for everyone else. And that could be causing widespread employee preoccupation with money worries--and productivity losses.

In other words, if you have the feeling your employees are distracted, that's because they probably are. And they're worried about finances-their own, not the corporation's.

More moves in the say on pay arena. Looks like the AFL-CIO is making a big push, trying to motivate shareholders to take part in votes on executive compensation this season.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to voice discontent over executive pay. And in fact, as more and more proxies reveal evidence of significant increases in CEO comp, this year is shaping up to be a good one for using say on pay to curtail C-suite pay.

The United States is a veritable slacker when it comes to the adoption and use of new technologies.

Those are some of the findings of a study from the World Economic Forum. It looked at 138 countries that comprise 38.8 percent of world GDP, using indicators ranging from patents to access to business telephone lines.